


this time, this time

by Muir_Wolf



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 14:34:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1019813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muir_Wolf/pseuds/Muir_Wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate start to season 4; Duke leaps into the barn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this time, this time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [galfridian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/galfridian/gifts).



> Happy Birthday!!!! ILU <3

 

 

Duke leaps into the barn.

 

 

It’s white in here—white, and unending, and disorientating. He turns in a circle, her name spilling off his lips. It varies in volume, lifts and rises in a crescendo of desperation, but his searching eyes do not find her, his outspread hand does not touch her.

 _Audrey,_ he says.

_Audrey, I’m here._

 

 

He picks a direction and starts walking. He doesn’t let himself think, yet, about what he left behind in Haven—Nathan bleeding, Agent Howard dead, chaos everywhere. He doesn’t let himself think about how he’ll get them out of here—here in a place that should by all rights be collapsing fast.

He thinks of her body brushing against his a hundred times—a thousand times. Fingers brushing as they handed over objects, shoulders leaning against shoulders in quiet companionship, a hand on a back, a light tap on the back of his head, an exhausted body sprawled against his.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been walking. Doesn’t know how much time they have left. His feet hurt, and his eyes are dry, as if he’s gone too long without blinking, and still her name carries into the deafening silence, his shouts as automatic as his breathing.

 

 

He would’ve stepped aside. Had already stepped aside, hadn’t he? That’s gotta count for something, he just doesn’t know if it’s romantic or foolhardy. Audrey loves Nathan; Nathan loves Audrey. Duke wanders through the cavernous, empty space. He tucks his hands deep into his pockets, as if the cold of the place is seeping into his skin, but he thinks, dimly, that it might be something else chilling him.

Nathan should have let her go.

It feels like Duke has spent a lifetime letting her go. Letting her make her own decisions, choose her own choices. It was tearing him apart, but it was her choice, wasn’t it? It wasn’t noble of Nathan to take her choice away; Duke doesn’t love her any less for doing what she asked. He swallows through a suddenly constricting throat, and he runs a hand through his hair, trying to regain his equilibrium.

He’s been in here for hours, maybe. Maybe more, but he’s still moving, still walking, so it can’t have been that long. Exhaustion is starting to seep into his pores, but he’s followed her everywhere she’s ever asked him, would have followed her to the end of the world and beyond.

(Maybe he is.

Maybe that’s what he’s doing right now.)

 

 

 _Audrey,_ he says, and her name tastes like rust on his tongue. He wipes the back of his hand across his lips, and it comes away red.

He stumbles on the next step, and when he looks down the ground suddenly looks unstable, thin cracks spreading beneath the surface. He stands still for a long moment, watching the lines stretch out around him open-armed, and then he tightens his hands into fists and takes another step.

 _Audrey,_ he says, blood on his tongue, but he can’t stop. He hasn’t found her yet.

 

 

She finds him, in the end.

She always has.

Her hand cups his cheek, her large eyes luminous.

 _What are you doing here?_ she asks, and he blinks heavy eyelids.

 _Time to come home, Audrey Parker,_ he says. He lifts his hand, but he doesn’t quite manage to catch her shoulder, his depth perception off.

 _Duke, you shouldn’t have come,_ she says. _This place—it’s hurting you._

He smiles crookedly, only belatedly remembering the blood that must be staining his teeth. _Barn’s collapsing,_ he says. _You aren’t safe._

Her hand shifts, her thumb wiping blood off of his chin. _I have to stay here, to keep the troubles away, but we have to get you out. We have to get you out, Duke. I’m going to get you out._

 

 

He blinks, blinks, blinks.

His arm is draped over her shoulders, and she is pulling him forward, keeping him steady as his feet stumble on the uneven ground. The heat from her body seeps into him, and he wonders if whatever she is— _really_ is—is somehow counteracting whatever the Barn is doing to him.

 _Audrey,_ he says, and this time the word doesn’t feel too large for his throat. _Howard’s dead. The barn is destroyed. You have to come home._

She tucks a few loose wisps of hair back behind her ear with her free hand. He can feel her other hand, digging tightly into his side, pulling him into her.

_Why did you come here, Duke?_

He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t need to answer. He knows she can see it spilled across his face, feels his features twist into something longing and tries to will them back, will his too-full heart deeper into his chest.

 _I let you go, Audrey,_ he says, because that should count for something. He’s always let her go.

 

 

There’s a door stretching in front of them in the distance. He doesn’t know how she found it, isn’t even sure if she knows. The heat from her body is keeping the chill at bay, but he’s faltering, his fingertips numb, his legs uneasy on the broken ground.

 _Dunno if I can make it,_ he says. _But you have to get out here. Have to help Nathan, have to save Haven, have to go back, Audrey._

 _I’m not going anywhere without you,_ she says. He can feel each individual finger press into his side, and when he looks down into her face the sheer defiance in her features catches his breath.

_Audrey—_

_Don’t you dare give up on me now, Duke Crocker. You said you’d do anything for me? This is what I want you to do. I want you to stay with me. Stay with me, Duke._

He sucks in one breath, and then another, and then nods jerkily. He can do this for her. He can do this. A hundred steps, a thousand steps, a million steps, whatever she needs. Just one at a time. Just one at a time.

 

 

He coughs, blood in his hand, his back sloping as he curls into himself.

 _Audrey_ — he says, his voice breaking around the word, and she keeps her hands on him, holds him together.

 _No_ , she says, and he blinks, blinks, and it takes him a moment to realize she’s no longer talking to him. _No, you want your pound of flesh, you come after_ me, _you leave him_ alone. _I’m not killing anybody I love, and you’re not either,_ you’re not either. _I don’t know what I am to you, hell, I don’t know what I_ am, _but he’s going to live, you hear me? He’s going to_ live.

He blinks, dizzy, and this vast white world spins lazily around him, and then, just a few yards away, is the door.

Audrey crouches down next to him, until she can see his face, and hers is transformed into something fierce and determined, something out of the Old Testament, ready to avenge and levy justice on any that dare oppose her.

 _Guess somebody’s listening_ , he says, breathless, and her expression loosens, her smile stealing its way onto her face. She kisses his cheek, her lips warm against his skin. Warm and something else, some part of her strength spilling into his limbs, blanketing his heart.

 _Can you stand?_ she asks, and he thinks again of what he has done for her, what he would do for her. Standing is not such a terrible request. Her fingers tangle between his for a moment, and he slowly pulls himself into a standing position. She squeezes his hand, once, and then tugs his arm back over her shoulder. _Together, then,_ she says. _We’ll go together._

 

 

A door, and a jump of blind faith, and then they are standing, breathless, in a field. 

The sky is tinged with pink—sunset, or sunrise, he can’t quite tell, not without seeing the sun.

He sinks gratefully to the ground, and she follows him down, kneeling beside him as he rolls onto his back. Sensation comes back slowly, and all his senses feel as if they’ve been ramped up to ten—the wind on his skin, the grass prickling against his palm, the clean colors of the world, the smell of fresh air and the look in her eyes.

“How long were we in there?” he asks. 

“I don’t know,” she says. “A long time, I think. Before I heard you calling—well. A long time, Duke.”

“And now?” he asks. “What do we do now?”

She smiles somewhat crookedly, but her eyes are distant as she eyes the horizon. “Whatever we have to, I guess,” she says. 

Her hand is still in his from when they first sank down, and he looks at their tangled fingers. Cautiously, he starts to separate them, but she tightens her grip instead, her gaze shifting back to his, something warm and grateful in her eyes.

“You don’t always have to let me go, Duke.”

“Audrey—” he says. His hand clutches hers just as tightly as she’s clutching his, and he wonders, for a moment, how they’ll do this. How they’ll keep fighting. How they’ll pick up the pieces. He doesn’t even know where they are, when they are, how they’ll get home, what they’ll do when they get there.

But she smiles, and her hand is in his, and she turns to look at the pink-tinged sky.

“Duke,” she says. “You don’t have to let me go.”

 

 

 


End file.
